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Month: January 2019

I still have a green/black PrivacEar headset from the first kickstarter. Of course, I don’t use them, they are far too valuable as a collectible, but yeah, I was one of the initial supporters. Loved them from day one. I used to play music too loud, just to drown out the conversations from randos on the street, so having the headphones cancel not just noise, but unwanted speech as well, was perfect.

My husband loved them too, once I showed how easy it was to set up the list of people you wanted to hear. No more shouting to get through to me when I had them on, he could just speak normally and I’d hear him. Like every other early adopter, we had our mishaps, shocking people overhearing our conversations. It’s so easy to forget others can listen in, when you have got used to not doing it yourself. It’s funny, but once you commit to respecting the privacy of others, you assume others will be as courteous.

We make progress, as a society, but sometimes we need to be shown the way, so I was very happy when the government made PrivacEars – originals or one of the other makes, even though everyone call them PrivacEars too, no matter how much they insist on calling them Generic Device for Privacy Respect – mandatory in public. I think back to when everyone walked around and had to overhear the private conversations of others, and shudder. We were so barbaric, so disrespectful.

“Excuse me, sir.”

An unknown voice. I look to the side, and see a police officer. Of course, he is automatically authorised to speak to me while he’s on duty.

“Yes, officer?” I say.

“Please take a different route, there is a disturbance ahead.”

I look past him. A large crowd of people, some with placards, are marching towards city hall. I can see them chanting something, but thankfully I don’t have to hear them.

“Of course, officer. Thanks for warning me.”

I leave him to redirect other pedestrians, and backtrack so I can avoid the obstruction.

I have not counted every story/poem I have written this year, but the final tally seems to be around 300 tweet-size pieces of microfiction or poetry. This is way below my usual tally of 500+ pieces, which I mostly attribute to the world being too distracting/distressing, and to the fact that from June onwards, a change in my role in my day job meant it became a lot more stressful and exhausting, but also very rewarding.

The stories above are all eligible for the Short Story Hugo award. If you would like to nominate my whole body of work – the microstories, the short stories, the poems, and the AdvenTale – for a Hugo award, you can nominate me (e.g. O. Westin, writing at twitter.com/microsff) in the Fan Writer category.